Two types of aa3-nominals in Cantonese
This paper provides an overview of the grammatical properties of the Cantonese aa3, a nominal element that only attaches itself to [+human] nouns. We provide evidence to show that there are in fact two types of aa3-nominals. Their syntactic and semantic properties correlate with the number of syllab...
Saved in:
Published in | Language and linguistics (Taipei) Vol. 21; no. 1; pp. 80 - 103 |
---|---|
Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Taipei
Academia Sinica, Institute of Linguistics
01.01.2020
|
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
Cover
Loading…
Summary: | This paper provides an overview of the grammatical properties of the Cantonese aa3, a nominal element that only attaches itself to [+human] nouns. We provide evidence to show that there are in fact two types of aa3-nominals. Their syntactic and semantic properties correlate with the number of syllables they consist of. There is a two-way split between disyllabic aa3-nominals and multisyllabic aa3-nominals. Aa3 in disyllabic aa3-nominals should be treated as a prosodic template filler while aa3 in multisyllabic aa3-nominals occupies a syntactic position in the referential layer of the Chinese nominal. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 1606-822X 2309-5067 |
DOI: | 10.1075/laN.00058.S10 |